(Thanks, Ryan, for the book recommendation!)
I’ve got my theology straight: I am saved by grace. Sometimes, though, I think of grace only in the past tense – something I once experienced that made me God’s child – instead of something that continues to impact and influence me today. A paragraph in John Ortberg’s book The Me I Want to Be reminds me of how I am not only saved by grace but how I also continually live by grace in the present.
Self-improvement is no more God’s plan than self-salvation. God’s plan is not just for us to be saved by grace – it is for us to live by grace. God’s plan is for my daily life to be given, guided, guarded, and energized by the grace of God. To live in grace is to flow in the Spirit. (p. 39)
4th Point 